CINCINNATI—The Edith J. Crawley Vision Science Research laboratory on UC’s medical campus was dedicated during a ceremony Tuesday, April 7.

The laboratory, located on the fifth floor of the Center for Academic and Research Excellence (CARE)/Crawley Building, creates a larger working space with state-of-the-art equipment for scientists researching eye-related diseases at UC.

Quest for Vision board members, members of the Crawley family, UC College of Medicine leadership and ophthalmology faculty, fellows, residents and alumni were in attendance Tuesday.

“The space is beautiful and is helping advance our research to new levels,” says Winston Kao, PhD, professor and director of ophthalmologic research at UC. “It also gives us an opportunity to have more interaction with other scientists. We can have stimulation among peers—our project, their project—and establish cooperation.”

The building, which was dedicated last fall, and lab is named after the late Edith J. Crawley, a UC graduate who was successfully treated for vision problems at the university.

Upon her death in 2003 at age 92, the sale of land holdings in Indiana supported her bequest of $12 million to the department of ophthalmology at UC to research a variety of visual disorders in older adults.

James Augsburger, MD, chair of the department of ophthalmology, says that in addition to Kao’s research, which is focused primarily on problems of the cornea and how it heals after injury, research teams will work on finding treatments for macular degeneration and glaucoma.

“The additional space permitted by Mrs. Crawley’s gift effectively allows us more than double the space we have for eye and vision science,” he says. “It will also give us the space needed to recruit additional outstanding vision research scientists.”

David Stern, MD, vice president for health affairs at UC and dean of the College of Medicine who spoke at the event, says the new space is filled with incredible possibilities.

“This lab and the CARE/Crawley building as a whole serves as a highly visible gateway to the Academic Health Center and holds some of the most technically advanced laboratory research and teaching space in the nation,” he says.

“I thank Edith J. Crawley for her graciousness and her desire to save the vision of millions of people worldwide through this gift.”